The Obama administration ignited a new election-year controversy Friday when regulators handed down fresh cuts to Medicare Advantage (MA).

Next year, plans in the program will see their payments cut by at least 2 percent on average between ObamaCare and a regular annual update, the announcement stated.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) argued that the reductions will help to strengthen the program — an increasingly popular alternative to traditional Medicare — and guard against waste.

So here’s a thought that I’ve already heard being mentioned around DC this weekend; the Democrats may be poised to turn this into a big political win for the mid-terms. How? Easy. Obama gets the cuts worked into the original Obamacare package, and then announces them. The Democrats, desperately hoping that nobody will remember that they all voted for the cuts in the first place, turn around and look like heroes when they suddenly rise up and “protect our seniors” from the cuts. Victory!

“Democrats they had better watch out” Already worried about the political fallout of seniors that are being hit with a reduction in benefits and higher costs, Democrats like Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor are panicked. This week, they were forced to admit in a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that they indeed cut Medicare for seniors after repeatedly promising they would protect these programs from cuts.

Sound crazy? Not really. Actually, it’s a fairly standard tactic if you assume that your voter base is fairly stupid and has the attention span of a fruit fly. First you create a crisis, then you charge in to the rescue and “fix it” yourself. Of course, America’s voters would never be gullible enough to fall for cheap parlor tricks like this, would they?

Look around you at the White House and the state of the nation today… it’s actually almost a given.

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Sound crazy? Not really. Actually, it’s a fairly standard tactic if you assume that your voter base is fairly stupid and has the attention span of a fruit fly. First you create a crisis, then you charge in to the rescue and “fix it” yourself

Since there will still be more non-Medicare victims out there of the ACA than victims, it’s a risky gambit by the Dems to simply tweak it for Seniors. At the same time, Seniors tend to be more focused on health care and specifically, who is mucking up their health care. The past six months of the ObamaCare roll-out is already burned into their brains — if the Democrats want to get it out far enough away from the November elections to have an effect, they better start now, and even then, they still would have to deal with irked Senior Citizens being whipsawed from one set of Medicare rules to another.

Here’s an idea that, regrettably would help the democrats if implemented, just repeal the damn thing and start over. ACA/Obamacare is a big steaming pile of BS! Quit delaying, amending and tinkering to smooth over short term political damage. Repeal the monstrosity, sit down with the opposition and hammer out some things that work without a government take over of the healthcare industry. Before democrat meddling 85% of US was happy with their coverage, funny we don’t see any polling about this now.

REPEAL you morons, you might just save yourselves the Senate majority!

It is always stupid to argue against painful cuts in a Democrats proposal. Those cuts are just there for “scoring” the bugetary impact of the proposal. Once the cuts become painful, the Democrats will always reverse them. That is why they make them painful – so reversal will be easy … and if Republicans don’t go along, they will be demonized for the cuts. How many times does this story have to be played out before this becomes obvious to all?

If Medicare Advantage is still worthwhile, I hope seniors will hold out and continue to pay for it…what they mean by “Strenghten Medicare” is that they hope fewer will choose Medicare Advantage, and more will be in the Medicare program without a supplement or in a Favored status supplement*.

A Medicare Advantage Plan is a type of Medicare health plan offered by a private company that contracts with Medicare to provide you with all your Part A and Part B benefits. Medicare Advantage Plans include Health Maintenance Organizations, Preferred Provider Organizations, Private Fee-for-Service Plans, Special Needs Plans, and Medicare Medical Savings Account Plans. If you’re enrolled in a Medicare Advantage Plan, Medicare services are covered through the plan and aren’t paid for under Original Medicare. Most Medicare Advantage Plans offer prescription drug coverage.

Favored status is going to be granted by the government, and because the ratings come from HHS, more reimbursement will go to urban areas that get quality stars more easily for completing social objectives. No stars will be given for “happiness with your plan,” or management of chronic disease in the elderly. Beware the jargon “Quality Outcomes,” they have more to do with liberal ideas spending for social empowerment than actual healthcare. Medicare Advantage is a private plan, bought by the middle class.
Do buy your medicare advantage, it is still a good deal for you even if it costs more. It is possible that medicare advantage plans were being rewarded with more reimbursement because they were medically effective, and that is the last thing these people want.

Medicare Advantage was “working” so the Obama Administration has to “Break” it for fairness.

Ukrainian political crisis
2m
More: Citing the risk of ‘mass violations’ of the rights of the people, Ukraine lawmakers endorse motion declaring President Viktor Yanukovych had ‘unconstitutionally given up his responsibilities and is unable to carry out his duties’ – @Reuters
end of alert

Perfect storm. The Dems pushed and voted for, this clusterflub in order to make O’Care more viable, sees the negative political results (from seniors, who, actually, vote)illegally sneak the money back, take full credit, then blame the Party of NO when the ‘pubs point out the blatant hypocrisy. The sycophantic media pick up the Dem mantra and…here we go, again.

ED, Katherine, Allah et al, Have you guys heard of the FACTA Act of 2010?

Per Wiki:
FATCA main provisions:

A. It requires foreign financial institutions, such as banks, to enter into an agreement with the IRS to identify their U.S. account holders and to disclose the account holders’ names, TINs, addresses, and the accounts’ balances, receipts, and withdrawals.[14] U.S. payors making payments to non-compliant foreign financial institutions are required to withhold 30% of the gross payments.[15][16][17] Foreign financial institutions which are themselves the beneficial owners of such payments are not permitted a credit or refund on withheld taxes absent a treaty override.[18]

B. U.S. persons owning these foreign accounts or other specified financial assets must report them on a new Form 8938 which is filed with the person’s U.S. tax returns if the accounts are generally worth more than US$50,000;[19] a higher reporting threshold applies to overseas residents and others.[20][21] Account holders would be subject to a 40% penalty on understatements of income in an undisclosed foreign financial asset.[16][22] Understatements of greater than 25% of gross income are subject to an extended statute of limitations period of 6 years.[23]

C. It also requires taxpayers to report financial assets that are not held in a custodial account, i.e. physical stock or bond certificates.[24]

D. It closes a tax loophole that foreign investors had used to avoid paying taxes on U.S. dividends by converting them into “dividend equivalents” through the use of swap contracts.[25][26]

Now this may seem like financial gobblegook but it has many in international finance community very worried. See, this makes holding US Dollars much more difficult and expensive.

To put this in perspective, our ability to print trillions in QE Dollars and run astronomical deficits depends solely on our status as the World’s Reserve Currency.

Throw in the fact that China is determined to destroy the Dollar’s role as the Reserve Currency, with the IMF assisting in promoting “Special Drawing Rights” – essentially an alternative currency vehicle to an end run around the dollar as the international medium of exchange of choice – and we got a problem.

Now comes along the FACTA 2010 nonsense, which makes holding Dollars much more onerous and expensive. Talk about dumping fuel on the fire of our own destruction! This easily could get the ball running in a market move away from the dollar.

If we had to finance our debt the way everyone else does, we would be paying many more times our present near zero Fed imposed interest rates and our debt service ( of $20 trillion in debt including off book) could easily zoom to over a trillion dollars a year. Our ability to run huge deficits could be radically curtailed. Since we only bring in $2.8 trillion in Federal Revenue, our ability to fund much else besides Defense, Social Security and Medicare would be in doubt.

The Dollar could descend into Weimar worthless land with bank runs, refusals to honor credit cards, etc. In short, potentially an unimaginable, devastating disaster.

Please, please guys – thoroughly investigate the impacts of this bill and get the word out!

The majority will see Democrats demanding more funding and will vote for them. This will go on until the money runs out.

CW20 on February 22, 2014 at 11:01 AM

There really was never any money…..it’s an illusion based on nothing.
Our currency is based on nothing and is about to crash.
When it does, Obama declares an emergency, martial law is imposed,
guns are confiscated, your credit cards and paper money are rendered worthless….

Oops! I forgot to add this stupid bill takes effect on July 1st of this year!

Doom!

Unsk on February 22, 2014 at 10:59 AM

Yeah, I waded through about half the same presentation. If what is predicted to happen comes true, dollars are going to flood in from foreign countries and we will, indeed, be taking truck loads of dollars to the grocery store to buy bread. That’s if you can afford $500 per gallon for gasoline.

Sound crazy? Not really. Actually, it’s a fairly standard tactic if you assume that your voter base is fairly stupid and has the attention span of a fruit fly. First you create a crisis, then you charge in to the rescue and “fix it” yourself.

So, the arsonist starts a fire, and once it’s out of control, he grabs a hose and he’s a hero. The world has gone crazy.

have to agree to disagree with you, this is almost a repeat of 1982 it think was the year, when seniors corned Rostenkowski. the only real difference is the media will cover the democrats arses and make it sound like the democrats are heros.

My wife is on Medicare Advantage, it is an excellent program. They actually have a comprehensive program (Humana in Tenn) that is saving costs while providing better care. Like being able to call an aide to come to the house to care for a situation like a fall that really doesn’t need an ambulance.

So the government is paying an insurance company to do what we really want and to do it right. Of course they want to kill it and call their valiant action “Saving Seniors”. But now they want to save the program to protect the Seniors – kind of like doing CPR on a corpse.

Keep it up Obama & Co. With every major change you make to this whatever it is, you give Justice Roberts another shot at getting it correct. He as the opportunity to say that his ruling was based on some hypothetical law that never existed.

How does this affect the CBO analysis? This is just deceptive. Give the CBO what they need to make the bill sound palatable and then change the law itself or make new laws that change the original. The people should all be in jail.

My wife is on Medicare Advantage, it is an excellent program. They actually have a comprehensive program (Humana in Tenn) that is saving costs while providing better care. Like being able to call an aide to come to the house to care for a situation like a fall that really doesn’t need an ambulance.

So the government is paying an insurance company to do what we really want and to do it right. Of course they want to kill it and call their valiant action “Saving Seniors”. But now they want to save the program to protect the Seniors – kind of like doing CPR on a corpse.

Jay Galt on February 22, 2014 at 1:53 PM

Just remember Jay, it’s got nothing to do with doing medicine right–it’s all about control of the people.
The rest is just a smoke screen.

In Obamacare, the payment cuts are across-the-board cuts (modifications of Medicare’s complex payment formulas) made throughout the bulk of the Medicare program. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), these cuts will decrease Medicare spending by an estimated $716 billion between 2013 and 2022.
The money is cut from hospital services, Medicare Advantage, skilled nursing services, hospice services, and other Medicare services. To be clear, the cuts do not target individual institutions or medical organizations suspected of waste, fraud, or abuse. (continues below chart)

…so my little old lady Obama voter neighbor said to me recently: “This Obamacare stuff isn’t going to affect my Medicare, is it?”
My reply, “Only if you think a Medicare cut of three quarters of a TRILLION with a capital “T” is a big deal.”

Didn’t Obama already postpone this Medicare Advantage cut once before the 2012 election? IIRC, there was some bogus study that put this big ol’ cut on a back burner until His Majesty was safely re-elected in Nov. ’12.

The Won has a dozen ways to obfuscate and postpone any bad news for his political benefit.

Dems once again save Medicare from the nasty GOP by returning the money the Dems stole from it to make ACA look like a money saver.

Main Stream Media swoons in adulation over the Dems concern for the elderly and criticizes the GOP for putting spending cuts before seniors even though the GOP tried to prevent the money from being taken from Medicare in the first place.

Dems win election and MSM ponders when the GOP will finally learn their lesson.

None of this matters to the stupid who walk among us. Romney spent many hours trying to tell the American people that obamacare cuts benefits to seniors. But the wolf pack media called him a liar. Now that everything the GOP warned about comes true, the same media will run stories somehow blaming the GOP for the mess. I spit on my fellow Americans who bought the Obama messiah lie. I used to give generously to charity but stopped except for our veterans. Other charities that may benefit Obama voters can starve as far as I’m concerned.

None of this matters to the stupid who walk among us. Romney spent many hours trying to tell the American people that obamacare cuts benefits to seniors. But the wolf pack media called him a liar. Now that everything the GOP warned about comes true, the same media will run stories somehow blaming the GOP for the mess.

fishstick on February 22, 2014 at 4:42 PM

Absolutely spot on correct.

I spit on my fellow Americans who bought the Obama messiah lie. I used to give generously to charity but stopped except for our veterans. Other charities that may benefit Obama voters can starve as far as I’m concerned.

fishstick on February 22, 2014 at 4:42 PM

Not giving to charity just plays into the hands of progressives who believe that the government should be responsible for taking as much of your money as possible and designating it as they see fit. They would LOVE for private charity to dry up (they have tried to limit/eliminate charitable contribution deductions, after all), so that they can co-opt the role of the private sector as much as possible.

I understand your sentiment, though. Perhaps you can designate a few charities which support specific goals/causes you would like to see the government stay out of?

All conservatives have to do is remind everyone that these democrat’s voted for this in the beginning, and they can’t be trusted. They never read the bill before they signed the bill….remember. democrats do not care about the welfare of the American people, they ONLY care about their power.

This is why the govt doesn’t need to be in the health insurance/providing business in the first place. The whole system has been strangled almost from day one thru regulations wanted by one group or another and politicians wanting to ‘help’. It will never be fixed until the govt controls the whole thing so sayeth our almighty ruler.

All conservatives have to do is remind everyone that these democrat’s voted for this in the beginning, and they can’t be trusted. They never read the bill before they signed the bill….remember. democrats do not care about the welfare of the American people, they ONLY care about their power.

Skullf15 on February 23, 2014 at 12:37 AM

Not so sure about that. When you say “All conservatives have to do is…” assumes that there is someone out there that can articulate these things to the masses. Given the plethora of issues available, it would seem a no-brainer but, so far, I have not seen anyone on the right that has registered with the majority of dumb Americans.